New Baubles

So I got my old Pentax-M macro sold on ebay, and made a profit on it. I took that money and a little bit more and bought the Samsung Schneider-Kreuznach D-Xenon 100mm Macro for Samsung and Pentax DSLRs - which is a re-badged Pentax D-FA lens. I couldn't wait to try it out.

What I discovered right away is that 1:1 isn't for wimps. If

you're going to work with magnifications that high, you just about have to have a tripod or a flash. So I continued my search for a

ringlight that 1) didn't suck, and 2) didn't cost $450. I got lucky at

one of the few good photography stores in the area - Overland Photo in Overland Park, KS - and picked up an old Lester Dine

ringlight for $40. It's got the Minolta TTL module, but works f

ine in "manual" mode, which gives about f16 @100 ISO. Add a 49-52 step up ring and I was in business.

So I strapped the 100mm Macro onto my K20D, screwed on Lester's ringlight (Wikipedia tells me he invented the ringlight... learn something new every day) and went in search of interesting bugs and other small things.

The most interesting thing I found, I flubbed the exposure on. I'm going to post it here anyway - I'm hoping someone knows what the heck it is. It's so counter to expectations that I'm left baffled and fairly speechless. It flew up and landed on the leaf I was looking at, and at first I thought it was a bit of fluff, but it turned out to be a bug. With fur or something:

What in the world IS that thing? I've seen a lot of funny lookin' critters, but this takes the cake. It's so bizarre that I'm inclined to think it's sick, perhaps a lacewing with a fungal infection or something - which gives me the shudders.
A little more wandering turned up this gorgeous little beetle - he's all metallic and shiny gold, like he was a clockwork insect of some sort. A Steampunk Beetle, maybe. My daughter said it lookes like you can see gears and stuff through his shell:

I love shooting macro images. The ringlight works, and makes it possible for me to get handheld images of these guys rather than lugging a tripod everywhere, but I am afraid that I'm going to have to figure out a way to adjust the power of the flash (so I can balance it with daylight) or just use a tripod. I like my hands-free and crazy technique that allows me to chase bugs with abandon, and I hate the idea of giving it up to be tied down to a huge hunk of metal that holds up the camera, but the image is king. If I have to, I will.

Sigma DC 18-50mm f2.8 EX Macro vs. Pentax DA* 16-50mm f2.8 ED AL IF SDM

That's a buncha alphabet soup, eh? I just happen to be upgrading from the Sigma to the Pentax, and I thought this might be a good time to do a quick head-to-head test. First things first, though, the significant differences in the lenses. The Pentax is weather resistant, the Sigma is not. The Pentax is SDM, the Sigma is screwdrive (noisier). The Pentax goes two millimeters wider - which wouldn't seem like all that much, but is significant in image framing. The Pentax is enormous by comparison, and heavy. The Sigma focuses closer than the Pentax - although the Pentax focuses closer than I expected, down to about four to six inches.

But what's important to me beyond those things I listed is image quality. Now, I'm not going to stack up a pile of side-by-side images. This is not an exhaustive shootout; just a quick head-to-head between a lens and the one that is replacing it. I'm going to tell you that from my position as occasional measurebator and general curmudgeon, in most applications, the real-life difference is one of personal choice.

With manual flash settings and the same aperture and shutter speed, the Sigma produced consistently darker images, by almost half a stop, all the way from f2.8 to f11. If you're shooting raw, this is well within adjustment range, and I promise if I put the pix up here side by side, some percentage would say the Pentax was overexposing, not the Sigma underexposing. Fair enough.

I am, however, going to provide a couple of images for side-by-side viewing. First the full frame images:

Pretty similar in appearance. The Sigma is a little warmer, maybe the Pentax a little more contrasty. When you go pixel-peeper on it, however, the difference really shows up. The Pentax is crisp and contrasty, but the Sigma goes all soft and dreamy -

Of course that doesn't mean the Sigma is a bad lens. After all, the Pentax lens costs almost twice as much. As I said, through most of the range of test images I shot, the difference was one of taste, no obvious differences in IQ. The Pentax focuses almost completely silently, and much faster and more accurately, but that's to be expected with the SDM motor.

Many people have said - mostly in 2007 - that the Pentax 16-50 has quality control issues. They may have resolved them, or I may have simply gotten a "good one", but I can't find a single flaw.

All in all, I think the Sigma is a good value, a great bang-for-the-buck purchase, but, at least in the instances of the two lenses I received, the Pentax is clearly superior. I'll be selling the Sigma soon. Watch ebay if you're interested!

Pentax 50-135mm f2.8 DA*

So I finally broke down and went with the Pentax long zoom after spending months agonizing over the choices. In the forums I have read that many people have had focus problems with the Pentax cameras and both the Sigma and Tamron long/fast zooms (70-210 f2.8). I debated the merits of manual focus vs. autofocus. Finally, I found a very good deal on the 50-135, and the Pentax brand won out.

The win is very well deserved. After just a few tens of pictures, I can tell you without any reservation that the lens I have is ridiculously sharp and contrasty. It focuses much more quietly than the 'screw drive' lenses, but certainly not much faster. Its focus is, however, both more accurate and more sure than any other autofocus lens I own. It's also the sharpest zoom lens I own, even approaching the image quality of my Tamron 180 f2.5. It's definitely as sharp as my old Pentax-M 135 f2.8 (which I shall be selling on ebay soon, as a result).


The inset here should give you some idea of the resolution this thing exhibits. It's visually indistinguishable at 2.8, as well - wide open! The corners are slightly less sharp at 2.8, but by f4, I can't see any visible difference between the center and the corner. I'm sure there's a measurable difference, just not an obviously visible one.

The lens isn't very heavy as such lenses go - certainly nothing like its 70-210 brethren in size or weight. It handles well and fast, and on the APSC-sensor'ed Pentax K20D, it's comparable to the 70-210 type lens on a full-frame camera. It's also weather-sealed to match the K10D/K20D, so you can go out in the rain and shoot pix... I'm not that brave, but it brings me some solace in case I get caught out in the rain.

I like the lens so much, I'm thinking about selling off a bunch of other stuff so I can get the 16-50mm f2.8 sister lens to complete the pair.

Peony

Peony
Originally uploaded by jstevewhite

There's an ant in the very center of this peony. We've got a bunch of 'em (peonies, not ants) in a small, rock circle in the front yard.

Woot! Got my Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 back from repair. Took 'em a month, but they seem to have done a very good job. It's not quite as contrasty as the 24-60 I sold my cousin, but it's pretty sharp and contrasty enough. It's the first lens I've bought that was targeted specifically at APSC sized sensors - I sure hope that the DSLR Pentax is supposed to release soon isn't a full frame unit!

My lens lineup is nearly complete; I'm only missing a good long zoom and a really long telephoto. I'm considering a pair of old Tamron lenses - the 19AH 70-210 f3.5 is a great long zoom, being only half a stop slower than the 2.8, but a fraction of the price and weight. Macro on the 19AH goes down to something like 2.5:1, also.

The other Tamron lens I'm thinking about picking up is the 500 f8 cat. On my APSC sensor-ed K20D, that should behave like a 750mm! I had one for a while for my film cameras, and it was fun, but not flexible enough. I think on the K20D, with the autoISO feature, it can be much more flexible. I'm pretty sure it will work in AV on the K20D, too. I know those lenses are very sharp. I also have the 1.4x SP teleconverter from Tamron - that would make it behave like a ~1200mm f11... bright sun only, but wow, talk about a 'reach out and touch something' lens!